The Tunisian economy is in turmoil. Nearly half of all Tunisians work as vendors in the informal – that is, illegal – economy.

In this ground-breaking new study entitled 'Merchants on the Margins: The political-economy of the Tunisian street', presented at the Alison Richard Building, University of Cambridge, on May 5 2015, Tunisia scholar Dr. L. Michalak drew links between the informal economy and informal politics in this post-Arab Spring state attempting to construct a politics of pluralism.

Based on years of fieldwork, the talk provided an ethnographic dimension to statistical studies of informality, while offering a powerful critique to the popular ‘formalizing the informal’ policy approach to solving the ‘problem’ of informal commerce.

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